Thursday, December 22, 2011

WRAP-UP POST FOR


Courtesy of Callapidderdays

Wrap-Up Post 12-22-11
I would really like to take a moment to thank Callipidderdays.com for hosting this reading challenge!  I had a LOT of fun with it!!  It really gave me the 'umph' to get these books read!  It was also SUPER NICE to have these ALL written down in ONE place instead of floating around in my head!!  I LOVED THIS!!!  I suggest anyone do one of these challenges!!  They are VERY rewarding to look back while you do a Wrap-Up post such as this!!  It's amazing to see what you have done in a certain amount of time, too!  Wow!

These are the DIRECTIONS:
What is this?
You list the books you want and plan to read between September 23rd to December 21st and put them in a post.  There is MORE INFORMATION at the above link
There is NO TIME LIMIT TO WHEN PEOPLE CAN SIGN UP TO PARTICIPATE IN “FALL INTO READING 2011”.   You are welcome to join at ANYTIME!!  Between NOW AND DECEMBER!  The deadlines mentioned in the prize/giveaways post are ONLY for prize eligibility!!  YES!!!  THERE ARE PRIZES!!
Go on over to sign up!!
Come back to MY blog here: http://lauriehere.blogspot.com/2011/09/fall-into-reading-2011.html  to come back to my blog to see what I am reading!!  (The books that are crossed out are books that I am done reading.)

but I will try to copy and paste what I posted there so I can talk about my books here!!

Here's what I am reading! Or, need to get read! The books that are numbered in RED are books I did NOT get read.  ALL the books that are crossed out ARE READ!!!  ALL the reviews may not yet be posted.
Never Knowing                                  Chevy Stevens            Goodreads!
Flat Out Love                                     Jessica Park               Crazy for Books Tour
Heiress                                              Susan May Warren     LitFuse Tour
Josefina’s Sin                                    Claudia H Long           Publisher  3/4 the way thru!

ALMOST DONE!!  Currently Reading!!  3/4 of the way done!!  Sins of the Mother     Tara Hyland                  Publisher
Come Back to Me                              Melissa Foster's***NEW!***Book Tour on 1-6-12
Baby, It’s Cold Outside                     Susan May Warren     LitFuse Tour
1.  Unforeseen Fears                         H WilliamGruchow
Holy Ghost Girl                                 Donna M Johnson -    Crazy for Books Tour
Farsighted                                        Emlyn Chand          -   Novel Publicity Tour
2.  Beatrice Munson                          Lorena Bathey            Author
The Baby Boomer’s Guide to
    Chronic Pain                                 Dr Michael J Kaye       Author
Anything                                           Michael Baron             Publisher/NetGalley
Still More Stories from
    Grandma’s Attic  Book 3              Arleta Richardson       Author
Treasures from Grandma’s
    Attic  Book 4                                Arleta Richardson       Author
Down From Cascom Mountain         Ann Joslin Williams     Publisher
3.  Northwest Angle                         William Kent Krueger  Author
The Burning Soul                             John Connolly            Publisher
4.  The Lost Angel                            Javier Sierra               Publisher
Falling to Pieces, A Shipshewana
    Amish Mystery                              Vanetta Chapman       NetGalley
Beside Still Waters                          Tricia Goyer                 NetGalley
Along Wooded Paths                       Tricia Goyer                 NetGalley
The Healing - Kentucky Brothers Book 3  Wanda E Brunstetter      NetGalley
The Journey-Kentucky Brothers  Book 2  Wanda E Brunstetter      NetGalley
5.  Lydia’s Charm                             Wanda E Brunstetter  NetGalley
Money Secrets of  the Amish            Lorilee  Craker             BookSneeze
Something Old                                  Dianne Christner         NetGalley
6.  A Prairie Christmas Collection      9 Different Authors     NetGalley
A Marriage Carol                   Chris Fabry&Gary Chapman   NetGalley
Easy and Elegant Beaded
    Copper Jewelry                            Lora S Irish                  NetGalley
Illustrated Guide to Sewing
    Garment, A Complete Guide
    For Fit and Fashion                     Peg Couch                    NetGalley
*Intoxications – Short Story           Tim Kizer                       Author
*The Black Chronicles:  Cry of
    The Fallen                                      Joel M Andre   ERROR - from Summer but still need to read and review!!  Have read it!  Need to write the review!


Books I forgot to list above OR I CHOSE TO READ and ARE INCLUDED IN THIS Challenge as I did read them during this Challenge:
The Green River Killer: A True Detective Story  by Jeff Jensen and Jonathon Case 
      A Graphic Novel - (My first!)                                                 NetGalley         
*A Winter Discovery                           Michael Baron                  NetGalley
*Any Color But Beige                         Catherine Larose             Tour Company/Publisher
*The World's Greatest Christmas Cookies:  A Sweet Collection of Recipes, Tips & Decorating Ideas, and Inspirations for the Season          Nanette Anderson           NetGalley
*You Don't Need a Prince, A Letter to My Daughter   Cheryl Shireman     My Choice
*Wanda E Brunstetter's Amish Friends Cookbook Desserts  Wanda E. Brunstetter  NetGalley
*The Attic in My Yard                           Birgit Horvath-Muck       My Choice
*Wired                                                 Martha Carr                    Author/Tour
*Naomi's Gift: An Amish Christmas Story     Amy Clipston        NetGalley
*Christmas at Harrington's                 Melody Carlson              My Choice


**CURRENTLY READING!! and WILL be again with my son:  *The Man in the Cinder Clouds     Rick Daley/Independent Author
only 2 Chapters left and I will be done with this book right after I post this!
*This a Middle Grade book that I am going to try to get my son to read over break!  
We'll see how my son likes doing this???  Eeeeks?  "TWO" books!!  He knows about the 
'1' listed below, but now I have added this, a 2nd one for him!!   That is okay, though, because this Christmas we are ONLY purchasing toys where he MUST sit still and play with!  This is intentional because he already knows he wants to be a Marine.  He has an Air-Soft Gun ARSENAL!!!  He has SOOO many guns, and has asked for ANOTHER one for Christmas! I talked to my father-in-law, who happens to be dying, but introduced him to collecting Die-Cast Collectible cars and motorcycles!  My FIL, even though he is dying, is STILL collecting AND building scenes from his hospital bed of gas stations, car dealers, and some Airplanes!  How's that!  He is buying my son some Die-Cast collectibles for him to play with.  I WISH I had this photo as a digital photo, but, my FIL sent us money to purchase a shelving unit. We purchased a plastic one for my son.  It has four shelves.  EVERY motorcycle is perfectly stood up by it's kick-stand, and every car is perfectly placed.  He loves these!  Now, allow me to tell you "I" have knocked some of these over, and he takes the time to re-stand EVERY vehicle that "I" knocked over! ALL 4 shelves are FILLED!!  This will be the PERFECT Xmas gift!  I am also buying him a Wright Brothers Wooden Air Plane to put together!  I'm excited over this! I think he'll LOVE it!!
I will let you know how the experiments go, IF you are interested to find out if a boy who HATES TO READ, DECIDES HE JUST 'MIGHT' LIKE IT!! To be continued . . . 

DURING CHRISTMAS WITH MY SON AND OF NOTE!!
*The Boy Who Flew With Eagles     Ben Woodard                Author - Middle Grade Book - This book is SUPER neat!  The author and I are doing an experiment with my son who HATES reading!!  This book is about a boy and an Eagle that soars.  I am to sit down with my son and we are going to read this book together and see what HE thinks!  I will let the author know.  My son is 14, but VERY immature for his age.  He is repeating the 8th grade.   He had ADHD and the medications he takes causes him to have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder pretty bad.  He must touch EVERYTHING 4x ALL the time.  It is VERY frustrating for him. I feel SO bad for him because he has come crying to me asking me why does he HAVE to do this?  REALLY pulls at your heartstrings, huh?  UGH! I wish I could take it away!

So, HOW DID I DO in this Fall Reading Challenge 2011?

How many books did I list to read in total -"44" 
How many books did I get read in total -    "38"!!  WOW!!  
How many did I NOT get read?   '6' of the books I listed for this challenge!
Did I ADD books as I the Challenge went along?  "YES!!!"
 
As I was reading along, I came across EVEN MORE books I NEEDED/WANTED TO "ADD" to this Challenge because they NEEDED TO BE READ AND HAVE REVIEWS WRITTEN BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR, or I CHOSE TO READ THESE BOOKS ON MY OWN!!  These are ALL listed under:  "Books I forgot to list above OR BOOKS I CHOSE TO READ and ARE INCLUDED IN THIS Challenge"
  
I am 'almost' done with Josefina's Sins, and The Man in the Cinder Clouds.  I wlll be finishing these tonight, right after I Post this Post, which I am including in this Challenge as I only have 2 short chapters of each book left.  

I read a Christmas book called, "Christmas at Harrington's" by Melody Carlson!  I also started another of her books called, "The Christmas Bus", by Melody Carlson as well.  I found out I LOVE Melody Carlson's writing!!  She is an author I had not read before, and I truly enjoyed and could relate to her character really well.  I thought she wrote a very good, believable story for the holidays.  I could really feel what the main character felt, the way the author wanted to portray this main character, she succeeded!  So I found a NEW Author I LOVE to read!!    

The BIGGEST challenge for ME with this was that I DID find other books I wanted to read, especially Christmas books!  I did find myself pushing myself EXTRA HARD!!  I did NOT figure in "Life"! Life happens!! Such as the testing for allergies, and I could NOT stop itching for 2 days after the testing!!  I could NOT read because I was sitting still, and the more I sat still, the WORSE MY ARMS ITCHED!!!  LOL!!!  That was really a nightmare!!  I can laugh NOW, but at the time, I think I drove my husband NUTS!!  That's okay.  Husband's NEED to be driven nuts every now and then!  They need to remember WHY they got married!  LOL!!  I'm on a roll tonight!
I also had to have a tooth pulled, which set me back 1 week in reading!  LIFE! UGH!
Next Fall Reading Challenge, I am going to keep about 5 books OPEN for Christmas reading "I" want to read for myself!  I found this year I REALLY WANTED TO READ MORE CHRISTMAS BOOKS once the season got near!!!  I wish I had thought of that back in September this year!  Well, this is why we have these challenges though, so we can learn from them!

What book stayed with me the most? "Come Back to Me" by Melissa Foster!  Excellent book!  My review will be posted here on my Blog on January 6th!  Come back then and you'll know WHY I chose this book!

Which book did I like the least?  Probably "The Lost Angel" by Javier Sierra, which is why I did not read it all - YET!!   It is just different than what I am used to reading.  It is NOT a BAD book AT ALL.  Just different than what I am used to reading.

Yes!  I already have books ready and listed for the NEXT reading Challenge!!  This is what I have so far.  I do NOT have ALL the ebooks listed here yet. So there ARE MORE TO COME!!!  Keep watching!!! 


**NEXT CHALLENGE:  These are books I received AFTER I posted this post. These books are NOT a part of this Challenge!  It's a nice way to keep track of what I need to read!! I will 'try' to get to these books before 12-21, but it is doubtful.  That is NOT to say I won't try!!  I WILL try!!  I think some of these are going to have to go into the Winter Reading Challenge 2012!  By listing them here as I get them is a nice way to keep track of what I will need to read for the NEXT CHALLENGE, the 

Winter Reading Challenge 2012!


**Defending Jacob                             William Landay                      Publisher
        Release date: 1-31-12 
**She Had No Choice                         Debra Burroughs                 Author 
**The Mercy                                       Beverly Lewis                        Publisher
(**Unto These Hills                             Emily Sue Harvey                 Publisher/NetGalley - This book I've had a problem downloading from NetGalley.  Due to the volume of books I still have to read, I am NOT going to contact the Publisher to get this one at this point in time.)  
**Lilly's Wedding Quilt:
**A Patch of Heaven                          Kelly Long                            NetGalley
**Alison Wonderland                         Helen Smith                          Author
**The Wonder of Ordinary Magic       Lilli Jologren Day                     Author
**Painted Jezebel                              Author                                  Author
**Longing                                          Karen Kingsbury                 NetGalley
**Smitten                                           Several Authors                  NetGalley

About the books:
A lot of the Amish books are from NetGalley.  NetGalley always seems to have a wonderful selection of Amish books.I've heard them referred to as, 'Bonnet Books'.  I had to laugh when I read that, but really, I guess they are in a way!  I belong to Amish Living, which you can find that by scrolling ALL the way to the bottom of this page, and you can find it on the top row in the far right column and click on the Icon!  We need to read a total of 15 Amish books within the year.  I am not sure what number I am on, and all the books I have read so far I have written reviews on, so they will be easy to find as they are here on my blog!  I 'do' need to catch up reading my Amish novels, and these should take me over 15, I believe.  The Amish books are such endearing reads.  They are about the simple life, but not about simple topics.  A topic that seems to have been addressed lately is the German Bible versus the English Bible.  Only the Bishops read from the :"German" Bible, leaving NO Bibles for the Amish folk.  The Amish rely completely on the Bishop's interpretation of the Bible since hardly anyone can read German.  Lately a LOT of Amish people have been purchasing English Bibles, which doesn't necessarily go over well with the other Amish families, which has made reading these books very interesting, to say the least!   I feel these are very enjoyable reads.  The books that do not have anything written as to where they are from are directly 'from' the Publisher.  The books marked with an * are directly from Indie Authors!  YEAH for the Indies!!!


STRUCK THROUGH BOOKS:   Are books I have read and written MOST of the reviews on!!  

Good Luck in ALL you do now and in the future! REMEMBER:  IT IS NEVER TO LATE TO SIGN UP!  HAVE FUN!
Laurie   

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